Trying to shove local politics under your nose since before it was cool: Frederick County Edition

Yesterday’s County Council meeting was quite the affair. The main event centered on the Scientologists wanting to open a 12-Step Spa/Internment Camp for the Thetans of Brainwashed Drug Addicts at Trout Run, near Camp David. The closing comments were especially festive.

First, Kirby Delauter read a letter from a constituent with some union-bashing type rhetoric to ensure that it was entered into the public record, saying he neither endorsed nor refuted it. In summary, let it be known that we don’t like it (not one little bit) when teachers try to negotiate salaries all together, and they expect everyone who benefits from those negotiations to contribute. Also, unions are terrible horrible no good very bad liberal things. Teachers should not be required to taint themselves with the vermin who would presume they were helping them, even if they *are* asking for them to all be paid a salary that may one day approach being competitive in this region.

Then, Billy Shreve had something to say, so listen up y’all: The honeymoon. It is over. It was such a raucous party, that reception…things so out of control that Shreve ended up locked out of his office, his key lost. And this whole time the Council had been celebrating what we erroneously believed to be a terribly awkward arranged marriage, somehow cobbled together by the Montagues and Capulets of Frederick County. The reason Billy “I Don’t Read” Shreve is no longer full of sweetness and light is that they have (again) put off voting on whether or not the Trout Run property will receive the historic designation needed to allow its eligibility to become a “group home” for Narconon. Jessica Fitzwater and Jerry Donald, took a pro-reading position in their defense. They preferred not to simply take the word of the applicant’s presentation, but to wait until they might also read what Jerry Donald called a “gigantic packet of stuff” that had been presented to them just prior to the meeting.

The council then backtracked a tad to allow public comments from John Somebody (I listened over and over, but couldn’t quite catch his name), President of Career Firefighters, as I understood it. Which sounds all Union-y and evil. Lo and behold! Every last council member managed to somehow listen to him respectfully without tantrums or name calling–even as he asked for things that cost taxpayer money! That’s what we call accomplishing something in Frederick County.